SureshKumar's Bioinformatics Blog

I am Suresh Kumar Sampathrajan. I have completed my PhD degree in bioinformatics from the University of Vienna, Austria in the year 2010. If you want to know more about me and my research,please click the menus at the top.

I have started this bioinformatics blog mainly for undegraduate and postgraduate students of bioinformatics. This blog will serve as an open resource material for the students and for those who wish to know about bionformatics. This blog contains video tutorials, tips, bioinformatics software downloads, articles on bioinformatics and career opportunities.

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A primer is a short synthetic oligonucleotide which is used in many molecular techniques from PCR to DNA sequencing. These primers are designed to have a sequence which is the reverse complement of a region of template or target DNA to which we wish the primer to anneal.A good primer should usually meet the following criteria1. Primers should be 18-38 bases in length;2. Base composition should be 50-60% (G+C);3. Primers should end (3') in a G or C, or CG or GC: this prevents "breathing" of ends and increases efficiency of priming;4. Melting temperature(Tms) between 55-80degrees Celsius are preferred;5. 3'-ends of primers should not be complementary (ie. base pair), as otherwise primer dimers will be synthesised preferentially to any other product;6. Primer self-complementarity should be avoided;7. Runs of three or more Cs or Gs at the 3'-ends of primers may promote mispriming at G or C-rich sequences (because of stability of annealing), and should be avoided.(adapted from Innis and Gelfand,1991)

Steps to follow to while designing a Primer through insilico approach:1.Calculating Properties of an Oligonucleotide2.Finding All Potential Forward Primers3.Finding All Potential Reverse Primers4.Filtering Primers Based on GC Content5.Filtering Primers Based on Their Melting Temperature6.Filtering out the Primers With Self-Dimerization and Hairpin FormationSelf-dimerization and hairpin formation can prevent the primer from binding to the target sequence.7.Filtering out Primers Without a GC ClampA strong base pairing at the 3' end of the primer helps in PCR. Find all the primers that do not end in a G or C.8.Filtering out Primers With Nucleotide RepeatsPrimers that have stretches of repeated nucleotides can give poor PCR results.9.Find the Primers That Satisfy All the Criteria10.Checking For Cross DimerizationCross dimerization can occur between the forward and reverse primer if they have a significant amount of complementarity. The primers will not function properly if they dimerize with each other. To check for dimerization, align every forward primer against every reverse dimer.11.Visualizing Potential Pairs of Primers in the Sequence DomainAn alternative way to present this information is to look at all potential combinations of primers in the sequence domain. Each dot in the plot represents a possible combination between the forward and reverse primers after filtering out all those cases with potential cross dimerization.11.Find Restriction Enzymes That Cut Inside the PrimerFinding the restriction enzymes from the REBASE database that will cut a primer. These restriction enzymes can be used in the design of cloning experiments. For example, you can use this on the first pair of primers from the list of possible primers that you just calculated.

PCR primers based upon protein sequence:If you have the protein sequence and want the DNA sequence, we can reverse translate a protein using reverse translate tools(i) Reverse translate a protein:http://arbl.cvmbs.colostate.edu

(ii) Back translation tool: We can enter sequence motifs which will be included in or excluded from resulting optimal sequencehttp://www.entelechon.com/

The concept of quaternary structure was ﬁrst put forward by Bernal in 1958. Quaternay structure is defined as the level of form in which units of tertiary structure aggregate to form homo or hetero-multimers. Quaternary structure is the interaction of non-covalently bound monomeric protein subunits to form oligomers. Such complexes are involved in various biological processes, including metabolism, signal transduction and chromosome replicating etc.

The protein quaternay structure file Server (PQS) is a internet resource that makes available coordinates for probable quaternay states for structures contained in the Protein Data Bank (PDb) that were determined by X-ray crystallography.

Uses of the PQS server1.Gives complete description of domain structures that involve more than one chain.2.Residues that are buried at protein protein interface can be conserved and this information can be used in homology model building to improve alignment.